Ego

One thing I never really comprehended growing up was the concept of ego. I suppose that's a failing on my part, but lately cases of ego seem to be happening all over. I may not even be using the proper term, but when it comes down to it, ego is all I can think of.
And from what I see, it seems to be one of the most damaging aspects of being human. It causes short sighted thinking, stalled or stagnated performance and an overwhelming anger and disregard for those it involves and so many around them.
Politically (which I'm just going to touch on and go, because it's such an irritant matter), I notice it most in the current gun topics that are going around. A wealth of mass shootings have occured in the past couple years and as a result, wingers (those on the edges of the political spectrum in terms of policy and opinion) see not so much a massive tragedy, but leverage for their own viewpoint to overwhelm the populace. Those who are for more legislation on guns start clamoring for more control and less availability. Those who advocate ownership use their perch to point out that a gun isn't causing the murder, it's the people. Those even more winged are like Nick Cage's character in Lord of War. They use the embattlement to further outlying causes, such as pushing for political change in one form or another. This is ego at its strongest and most damaging.
To me, it's all rather sickening.
Rhetoric and doublespeak serve their best only at confusing those willing to waver, but neither promote a healthy discussion or attempts at properly addressing the problems at hand. It's politics and ego holding hands and skipping down the yellow brick road to Neverland.

I prefer the ugly route. I prefer to lay everything out on the table, strip away the personal and look at facts from as many angles as possible. I may not like or agree with other viewpoints, but at least I'm not shutting them out and only bolstering those that suit my own. And maybe, just maybe, I will see something that can change my mind a little bit. It would have to come with reasonable facts in tow, it would have to be as unbiased as possible and it would have to be straightforward with little to no room for misinterpretation.
That alone would dismiss 99.8% of submissions for consideration. But I'd have to hope that at some point something would come along.
Scientific hypothesis and experiments are about not being proven right, but by being proven wrong.
If we, as a society, were to drop our egos and hope to be wrong rather than right. If we were to keep butting our heads against the stone wall, we will enevitably find the crack that will bring the whole dam down. I just hope that we're willing to accept that hurting ourselves is part of that process.